In Moldova proper, virtually everyone knows how to read/write Latin script,
Do you know this for certain?
because the government isn't allowed to use Cyrillic script (it's unconstitutional, since Latin is specified as offical script).
Well, did you know that governments can't deal with 100% of their citizens using writing? In Moldova, somewhere between 1% and 4% of the citizens are illiterate altogether (can't read or write). How does the government deal with these people? And why couldn't they deal the same way with Cyrillic people??
The case is quite interesting - in rural areas, less people actually write in Cyrillic, because rural areas are much less Russified.
Ronline, that's simply not true. You know that's not true, because you and I had a lengthy discussion on it at Talk:Moldovan_language, where I provided you with a source which documents the fact that in rural areas Cyrillic is more used. Rural areas are less _Russified_, yes. But simply using Cyrillic to write Moldovan has nothing to do with being Russified -- in 1980, even monolinguals used Cyrillic to write the language, no matter whether they were from the city or the countryside.
But consider this case: A farmer, Gheorghe Curechi, went to school in the Soviet period. He left school when he turned 14 so he could work in the fields. At his school, he learned some good stuff, but only a little bit of Russian. Most of his schooling was in his hearth language, a language he calls Moldovan because that's what his teacher at school told him it was named.
He isn't an idiot, he isn't behind the times, he knows very well that Moldova is now called "Republica Moldova" instead of RSSM. And he knows that since 1989, his language is now written using the "French alphabet", like the language of the neighbouring country, Romanian, has been for as long as he knew.
His grandchildren learn this alphabet at school, but he doesn't really know it. He can read some of the basic things. He doesn't get the newspaper, but if he did, he wouldn't be able to read it.
He keeps a diary, which he writes in every day. He does it to keep his wits sharp, since he lives alone. And of course, he uses Cyrillic.
The last time he went into town, a few months ago, he had no troubles understanding anybody, but he didn't know what most of the signs meant because they were mostly written in the "French alphabet" which he doesn't know.
Gheorghe doesn't really care to learn the Latin alphabet because he doesn't have much need for it. He has a few dusty old books in his posession, their covers have fallen off. Three of them are in Russian so he doesn't really understand them, but the other ones are all written in Moldovan-Cyrillic. He has already read them though, and he doesn't have much use for them anyhow.
This story is obviously fictional -- It'd be a bit funny if there were really some farmer named "gheorghe curechi" (or as he spells it, reopre kypekb).
previously wrote in Cyrillic have been accustomed so far to ubiquitous text in Latin.
What about my example with Mr Curechi? What need would he ever have for the Latin alphabet?
You could argue that he doesn't use Wikipedia either because he doesn't have a computer. Well, we could use the same criteria to argue to get rid of most Wikipedias in African languages. But there is the hope that someday, a printed version might be made, and it could be distributed.
Surely we shouldn't just ignore the minority of Moldovans who are like Mr KYPEKb?
So, as I said before, I don't think this Cyrillic script Wikipedia serves any really practical purpose.
The people who work on it now (not just me) disagree... otherwise, they'd just be wastingtheir time.
Their "emotional" links to Moldova and to an extent Romania are therefore quite strong.
Sources, please?
I presume about half of those people would know and prefer the Latin alphabet, which leaves about 100,000 people that would actually write in Cyrillic and may have some trouble reading/writing Latin script.
Well, even if it is just 100,000 total, that's still not a negligible number.
Mark
-- "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin